Page 21 - Volume 15 Number 12

is given for the service-life hours remaining on the traded-in PT6A-114. The original engine mount and accessories are used, but new vibration isolators are installed and the support ring’s mounts are increased from three to four. Typical weight increase is between20 and 40 pounds. The PT6A-42A engine is three inches longer, requiring installation of an all-new carbon-fiber composite cowling, which Blackhawk builds in-house at its Morgantown, Kentucky, composites facility.There’s ample workroom inside the cowling; someone listened to long-suffering maintenance technicians. Dunkin lifted the left cowling half to point out an engine oil sight glass, used to verify proper oil level without pulling a dipstick. A Concord RG-380E/44 lead-acid battery is on the right side. The oil cooler in the nosecap is 40-percent larger than before and the adjoining air intake opening is bigger as well, with its angle changed to increase FOD dispersion.Aft of the firewall, most of the airplane is the same as it came from Cessna. The power quadrant in the cockpit is unchanged, but all the power gauges are replaced by Blackhawk’s own Digilog units that have digital vernier readouts as well as analog needle presentations. A new placard on the panel calls for a minimum of 130 knots airspeed to be maintained when flying in icing conditions. Those are the only changes required.Dunkin related his experiences when conducting the natural icing tests. One sloppy autumn day, meteorologists directed him to a likely area in western Kansas, where icing was present between 5000 and 9000 feet. He flew in the accumulating ice for 50 uninterrupted minutes and never saw the airspeed deteriorate below 145 knots, even though the boot- equipped aircraft picked up massive chunks of rime on unprotected areas. A meteorologist viewing photos of the flight pronounced it to be “near severe icing”. No further testing was needed.DECEMBER 2011TWIN & TURBINE • 19